The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service Read online

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Beth Kendrick

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  Praise for

  Beth Kendrick’s Novels

  The Bake-Off

  “With her usual literary flair, Kendrick delivers a scrumptious literary confection expertly spiced with humor and seasoned with just the right dash of romance.” —Chicago Tribune

  “A warm, winning story about the complications of sisterhood—and the unexpected rewards.”—Sarah Pekkanen, author of Skipping a Beat

  “A sweet, fun, and entertaining look at family, love, and the perfect pastry. . . . Fans of women’s fiction, foodie fiction, and novels about sisters will delight in Kendrick’s descriptions, vivid characters, and fast-paced, hilarious dialogue. A book that often had me laughing aloud—and wiping away a tear at points. Recommended.”—Write Meg!

  “I absolutely loved this book. It is laugh-out-loud funny and you can’t help but love both sisters. Don’t be surprised if you want to try out the yummy-sounding recipes the author includes.”—Chicklit Club

  “A fun story of two estranged sisters who enter a baking competition together. . . . The characters are well written and if you have sisters or even siblings, you’ll definitely be able to relate to the sibling rivalry.”

  —Just Short of Crazy

  “This story is sweet like a great dessert—just the right amount of sugar and spice. It’s a story that celebrates both sisters and the therapeutic benefits of baking. . . . [Amy and Linnie’s] adventures in baking will make you laugh and [will] warm your heart.”

  —News and Sentinel (Parkersburg, WV)

  “Wonderful! Kendrick manages to cook up a tender, touching, and very funny story about the complicated relationship of two sisters torn apart by their own stubbornness and brought back together by love and pastry. With a fresh plot and richly layered characters, The Bake-Off is a winner.”

  —Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life

  Second Time Around

  “Kendrick deftly blends exceptionally clever writing, subtly nuanced characters, and a generous dash of romance into a flawlessly written story about the importance of female friendships and second chances.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Smart and fun, this is my favorite book this year.”

  —Jane Porter, author of She’s Gone Country

  “A touching and humorous look at love, loss, and literature.” —Booklist

  “Extremely engaging. . . . [Kendrick’s] characters were easy to fall in love with.”—Night Owl Reviews

  “Kendrick is an undeniably practiced hand at depicting female bonds.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A funny, charming story about the power of female friendship, and a must-read for all English majors, past and present.”

  —Kim Gruenenfelder, author of Wedding Fever

  The Pre-nup

  “In the exceptionally entertaining and wonderfully original The Pre-nup, Kendrick writes with a wicked sense of humor and great wisdom about the power of friendship, the importance of true love, and the very real satisfaction of romantic revenge done right.” —Chicago Tribune

  “The three female leads all captivate.” —Romantic Times

  “[A] highly entertaining story.” —Fresh Fiction

  “[Kendrick’s] heroines are easy to like.” —Booklist

  “Clever, wise, and wonderful, The Pre-nup is Beth Kendrick at her best.”

  —Jane Porter

  “Witty, juicy, and lots of fun! Say ‘I do’ to The Pre-nup.”

  —Susan Mallery, New York Times bestselling author of Only His

  “A smart, funny spin on happily-ever-after!”

  —Beth Harbison, New York Times bestselling author of Always Something There to Remind Me

  Nearlyweds

  “A fun and funny look at marriage, commitment, and figuring out what your next best step is . . . whether it be down the aisle or not.”

  —Alison Pace, author of A Pug’s Tale

  “Very funny.”—Carole Matthews, author of The Chocolate Lovers’ Diet

  Fashionably Late

  “Wickedly clever.” —Booklist

  “Kendrick’s keen sense of humor and pitch-perfect gift for dialogue are excellent accessories to this fun and frothy tale.” —Chicago Tribune

  Also by Beth Kendrick

  The Bake-Off

  Second Time Around

  The Pre-nup

  Nearlyweds

  Fashionably Late

  Exes and Ohs

  My Favorite Mistake

  The

  Lucky Dog

  Matchmaking Service

  Beth Kendrick

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Beth Lavin, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-58531-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility fo
r author or third-party Web sites or their content

  .

  For Will

  I’m so lucky to have you in my life

  Chapter 1

  “I’m short, I’m balding, and I’ve put on twenty pounds since my fiancée left me for her personal trainer. You’re my last hope for love.”

  Lara Madigan froze in the drugstore parking lot, one hand on the door handle of her Oldsmobile station wagon. She didn’t recognize the wheezy male voice behind her and so she hoped, for a moment, that perhaps he was addressing someone else.

  But the guy made a deep, phlegmy noise in his throat and persisted: “You’re the matchmaker, right?”

  Lara turned around slowly, pulling up the collar of her coat to shield her neck from the chilly winter wind. “Yes, I am. Pleased to meet you.” She offered her right hand, and the man grabbed it like a lifeguard’s buoy, both of his sweaty palms engulfing her fingers.

  “Peter Hoffstead. You have to help me.” He tightened his grip. “I’m desperate.”

  Lara’s mind automatically whirred into assessment mode. The first thing she noticed about Peter was that his outfit didn’t match his personality. Though his complexion looked pasty and his remaining hair was graying, he was attired in visible designer labels: Cartier watch, Rock & Republic jeans, Burberry belt. From the neck up, he was Bill Gates, but from the neck down, he was P. Diddy. Someone else had clearly picked out his wardrobe—someone who wanted him to be more of a debonair playboy and less of a middle-aged homebody.

  She gently but firmly pulled away from his grasp and rummaged through her shoulder bag for her business card. As she handed it to him, she cautioned, “I’m always looking for promising prospects, but you have to understand that I can’t match just anyone. All my prospective clients undergo a rigorous screening process, and my standards are very high. I have to consider the long-term happiness of everyone involved.”

  “One of your previous clients can vouch for me.” Peter rubbed at his nose with a clean but wrinkled handkerchief. “Mark Heston—he’s my neighbor. He said you hooked him up with Amelia.”

  “Amelia!” Lara softened at the name. “What a sweetheart. How’s she doing these days?”

  Peter shrugged. “Great, I guess. Mark never shuts up about her. I need you to do for me what you did for him.” He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his black leather jacket and offered up a stack of cash. “I’ll pay whatever you ask. I’ll double your usual fee.”

  Lara made no move to accept the folded green bills. “What I do isn’t about money. It’s about finding a true soul connection. I want all my pairings to last a lifetime, so I need to figure out exactly what your needs are and who best meets them.”

  Peter nodded, and as he stuffed the money back into his pocket, he sighed with resignation. He stopped the posturing and name-dropping and gave her a glimpse of the raw loneliness festering beneath all those designer labels. “Look.” He spread out his hands. “I know I’m not the most appealing guy, physically. My fiancée made that very clear before she left me. But I’ve got a lot to offer: love, stability, all that stuff.”

  Lara tilted her head and took in his body language. Years of trial and error had taught her that it didn’t really matter what a prospective client said. People used words to manipulate and evade, to justify their mistakes and prejudices. The truth was in the tone of their voices and the light in their eyes.

  “When I make a commitment, I keep it,” Peter continued. “I own my own business, I work at home. . . .”

  “You do?” Lara’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you have a yard?”

  “Half an acre,” Peter assured her, puffing up with pride. “Fenced. Backs up to a nature preserve.” He beckoned her closer. “With hiking trails. I’ve started jogging four days a week. Well, I do a fifteen-minute mile, which I guess doesn’t really qualify as jogging. But I’m trying. And it’s easier to get motivated to exercise when you have a partner, you know?” He looked at her with a mixture of hope and chagrin. Clearly, he was bracing himself for her refusal.

  She started compiling a profile in her head: attentive, outdoorsy, willing to learn . . .

  “I’ll do whatever you tell me. You won’t be sorry. I just need help meeting women. I’ve tried going to bars, signing up for Internet dating sites, but nothing’s working. I need a wingman—someone to break the ice. Will you help me? Please?”

  He gazed at her through his smudged, crooked glasses, and she started to smile. This was a good man, with a good heart, who just needed a little boost to his confidence. A carefully chosen companion to help him rediscover his sense of self-worth without flaunting pricey logos or stacks of cash.

  “I think I have the perfect match for you.”

  His whole body tensed with anticipation. “You do?”

  Lara nodded. “Cute, charismatic, and virtually irresistible. Guaranteed to draw a crowd wherever you go.” She brought up a photo on her cell phone and showed Peter the snapshot of a scrappy, scruffy yellow terrier. “Meet Murphy.”

  Chapter 2

  Lara could smell vanilla and lemon as soon as she stepped into the house. Two steps later, she could sense turmoil brewing, too.

  She braced herself for the wildly enthusiastic canine greeting committee, but the hallway remained empty. Her boyfriend, Evan, had bought this house last year, but Lara had moved in only a few weeks ago, and the place retained the bare-walled, sparsely furnished feel of a stereotypical bachelor pad. Lara had been no help in adding a homey “woman’s touch” to the place—her interior decorating contributions began and ended with setting up a doggie wading pool on the back patio and pulling all the potentially poisonous shrubbery out of the landscaping.

  Oh, and the piles of her boxed-up belongings helped to balance out the lack of furniture.

  “Hello?” The sound of her flip-flops echoed off the tile floor as she headed toward the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”

  “In lockup.” Evan stood in the middle of the breakfast area, his hair wet, his light blue shirt unbuttoned, and his expression grim as he scrubbed the counter with a damp dish towel. Tall and lanky, with reddish brown hair and a head full of brilliant business sense, Evan had intrigued Lara from the day they first met. He taught economics in a prestigious MBA program, but at home he always looked like he was a pair of Converses and a few swipes of a razor away from playing ultimate Frisbee on the quad. He wasn’t into status symbols, but he’d worked hard for everything he had and he took good care of his investments—including his house.

  “Uh-oh.” Lara put her bag down on a wrought-iron chair and approached him with a conciliatory smile. “Should I even ask what their crime was this time?”

  Evan leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “My afternoon meeting got canceled, so I came home early to bake a cake for your birthday tomorrow. While it was cooling, I ran upstairs for a two-minute shower, and your dogs—”

  She went up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. “Our dogs, darling. Remember?”

  “—ate the entire thing.”

  Lara’s eyes widened with alarm. “It wasn’t chocolate cake, was it?”

  “No, it was banana sour cream, and those bastards ate every crumb. I made lemon icing, too. We’re going to have to stick a candle in that and eat it with spoons.”

  She exhaled and relaxed. “That’s good. I mean, it’s not good, but if the dogs ate a chocolate cake, the theobromine could cause serious heart problems.”

  “I made that cake from scratch.” He thumped the cookbook next to the sink. “With actual flour and eggs and butter.”

  “And I appreciate every granule of sugar you put into it. I’m sure it was delicious.”

  “They also ate the flowers I bought you.” Evan pointed to a shard of glass by the patio door. “Watch your step. I’m still cleaning up the vase.”

  “That must’ve been Zsa Zsa. She has a bizarre craving for greenery.” Lara grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down for another kiss. “Flo
wers and cake? A girl could get used to this.”

  He frowned. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” She took off her jacket and got the broom out of the pantry.

  He nodded toward the door of what used to be a spare bedroom and was now known as “the dog room.” “Aren’t you going to punish them?”

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not? They’re a bunch of conniving cake thieves.”

  Lara shooed him away from the counter and got to work sweeping up the broken glass. “First of all, discipline has to be immediate to be effective. If I correct them now, they’ll have no clue what I’m correcting them for.”

  “They ate my banana sour cream cake. They must pay.”

  “Second of all, they’re not conniving. You’re giving them way too much credit. They saw a cake within striking distance, so they struck. Maverick was probably the ringleader. We’re working on his counter-surfing tendencies, but if you leave a cake out and don’t crate him . . .”

  Evan grabbed an apple out of the refrigerator and took a big, angry bite. “So you’re saying it’s my fault for leaving the cake on my kitchen counter instead of in a bank vault? That’s bullshit. It’s my counter in my house, and he should—” He saw her expression change and hurriedly corrected himself. “I mean, our counter in our house.”

  Lara stopped sweeping and took a long, analytical look at her boyfriend. He was usually calm and levelheaded to a fault. “I’ve never seen you so angry. Are you mad at the dogs or at me?”

  He made her wait through another bite of apple before he responded. “You’re a dog trainer, right? So shouldn’t your dogs be, I don’t know, trained?”

  Her grip on the broom handle tightened. “I’m a trainer who takes on dogs after other people have instilled a lifetime of bad habits in them. It’s not magic. It takes time and patience. And I’ve got news for you: If you want a houseful of well-behaved dogs, you need to help out with the training. They’re adjusting to the new living situation, too, and they need structure and consistency from both of us.”